Tag Archive: AP

BERLIN (AP) — “At least 20,000 people held a major rally of the local Occupy movement in Frankfurt on Saturday to decry austerity measures affecting much of Europe, the dominance of banks, and what they call untamed capitalism.

The protesters peacefully filled the city center of continental Europe’s biggest financial hub on a warm and pleasant afternoon, said Frankfurt police spokesman Ruediger Regis. He said 20,000 people were there, while organizers put the number at 25,000.

The protest group, named Blockupy, has called for blocking access to the European Central Bank, which is located in Frankfurt’s business district.

Organizer spokesman Roland Seuss the protest is “against the Europe-wide austerity dictate by the (creditor) troika of ECB, the EU Commission and the International Monetary Fund.”

(Reuters) – “German police said they detained 400 anti-capitalist protesters in Frankfurt on Friday for defying a ban on demonstrations against austerity policies implemented to tackle the intensifying euro zone debt crisis.”

“Tens of thousands of Muscovites thronged to a square across the river from the Kremlin on Saturday to protest alleged electoral fraud and urge an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s rule, demands repeated at other rallies across this vast country in the largest public show of discontent in post-Soviet Russia.”~Yahoo/REUTERS

The Occupy Wall Street protests are moving into the neighborhood. Finding it increasingly difficult to camp in public spaces, Occupy protesters across the country are reclaiming foreclosed homes and boarded-up properties, signaling a tactical shift for the movement against wealth inequality.

Groups in more than 25 cities held protests Tuesday on behalf of homeowners facing evictions.

In Atlanta, protesters held a boisterous rally at a county courthouse and used whistles and sirens to disrupt an auction of seized houses. In New York, they marched through a residential neighborhood in Brooklyn carrying signs that read “Foreclose on banks, not people.” Southern California protesters rallied around a family of six that reclaimed the home they lost six months ago in foreclosure.

“It’s pretty clear that the fight is against the banks, and the Occupy movement is about occupying spaces. So occupying a space that should belong to homeowners but belongs to the banks seems like the logical next step for the Occupy movement,” said Jeff Ordower, one of the organizers of Occupy Homes.

The events reflect the protesters’ lingering frustration over the housing crisis that has sent millions of homes into foreclosure after the burst of the housing bubble that helped cripple the country’s economy. Nearly a quarter of all U.S. homeowners with mortgages are now underwater, representing nearly 11 million homes, according to CoreLogic, a real estate research firm.

#Chernobyl workers protest in #Ukraine #N29

“Survivors of Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear accident are staging their protest in the mining city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine since November 14 after reductions in the state pensions they receive for their part in fighting the 1986 disaster. At least one death has been reported in the fallout with police.”~(Yahoo/AP)

1)”Ivan, 62, a veteran involved in the clean-up operation after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, is seen in front of a government building during a protest in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011. The veterans were demanding the right to keep the social benefits given to them after the clean-up. The ribbon on his head reads: ‘Chernobyl’.” (Yahoo/AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

2)”Police block liquidators, or emergency workers who fought the blaze at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, as they protest against the authorities’ initiative to cut social benefits, near the government headquarters in Kiev November 29, 2011.”~ (Yahoo/REUTERS/Gleb Garanich)

3) “Liquidators, emergency workers who fought the blaze at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, carry a symbolic coffin during a protest in Donetsk November 29, 2011. The action marked the death of a protester who had been on hunger strike over pension cuts and who died after police broke up their tent encampment on Sunday night.”~(Yahoo/REUTERS/Valeriy Bilokry)

4&5) Protesters clash with police, form human chains in front of a government building in Kiev. The protesters are demanding their rights to social benefits for cleaning up after the Chernobyl disaster. (Photo credits: Yahoo/AP)

Protests in #Germany continue against transportation of Castor nuclear waste containers. Protesters have been rallying since Nov 23 (amended) and have tried a variety of techniques to stop the train carrying nuclear waste. Including chaining themselves to concrete blocks on the tracks, placing stones upon the tracks, bending the tracks themselves (which have since been repaired), as well as building a street blockade of tree branches. According to AP reporting from Berlin over 1,000 people were temporary detained on Sunday, Nov 28.